A British government department, created originally at the demand of Welsh MPs.
Calling it an English Department is ludicrous cause England doesn’t have a devolved government, even more so when it’s run by a Welsh MP.
An English Department wouldn’t be run by Welsh MPs, just like the Ministers of Welsh Departments are all wholly elected Welsh Senedd members, and are therefore Welsh not English.
Pointless nationalism for nationalist sake smh
Weak attempt to stir up outrage.
It isn’t an “English” department, it’s a British one, led by a Welsh MP.
Says everything about the waste of time and money that is WAG
There is no such thing as an “English Government”. England does not have a devolved parliament, and if they did, they sure as hell wouldn’t have jurisdiction in Wales.
It’s the British Government, of which we in Wales are active and willing participants.
Stop trying to stir up fake outrage. You make the nationalist cause look even more ridiculous than it is, and that’s saying something.
Student politics.
Ignoring the headline, the main issue here is that when we were part of the EU, the Welsh Government created a body called the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO).
WEFO processed applications for funding from the EU Structural Funds and decided whether those projects aligned with Welsh Government goals for the funds. WEFO then paid the money to the successful projects on behalf of the EU. To make it clear, decisions on EU funding in Wales were devolved to the Welsh Government.
The UK Government under the Tories made a political decision to change that as part of the Brexit process. Instead of passing the replacement funds directly to the Welsh Government (which could have quite easily repurposed WEFO) for it to choose how the money was spent (as happened pre-Brexit), a new UK Government department was created to handle the process from start to finish and distribute the funds, in line with UK Government policy, not Welsh Government policy.
Unsurprisingly, the Welsh Government (and Welsh Labour) has always insisted that it should be responsible for this (as was the case pre-Brexit), not the UK Government. Following Welsh Labour’s desire to have the powers and money devolved again, Keir Starmer promised in 2023 that it would once again be devolved to Wales. Fast forward to the run up to last year’s election, Jo Stephens watered down that promise and said the UK Government would have control over it but “Welsh representatives” would be involved in the decision-making process. Fast forward to 2025 and we now know that those Welsh representatives aren’t from the Welsh Government, instead they’re UK Government ministers, removing any influence the Welsh Government might have had.
Of course, at the moment, the UK and Welsh governments are both controlled by Labour so you’d imagine they can come to informal agreements to include Welsh Labour priorities when making funding decisions. That might not always be the case and the Welsh Government would have absolutely no influence, informal or otherwise. Yet again, Labour promised one thing in opposition and changed their mind when they got the keys to Number 10.
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Partnership in power is going well then.
A British government department, created originally at the demand of Welsh MPs.
Calling it an English Department is ludicrous cause England doesn’t have a devolved government, even more so when it’s run by a Welsh MP.
An English Department wouldn’t be run by Welsh MPs, just like the Ministers of Welsh Departments are all wholly elected Welsh Senedd members, and are therefore Welsh not English.
Pointless nationalism for nationalist sake smh
Weak attempt to stir up outrage.
It isn’t an “English” department, it’s a British one, led by a Welsh MP.
Says everything about the waste of time and money that is WAG
There is no such thing as an “English Government”. England does not have a devolved parliament, and if they did, they sure as hell wouldn’t have jurisdiction in Wales.
It’s the British Government, of which we in Wales are active and willing participants.
Stop trying to stir up fake outrage. You make the nationalist cause look even more ridiculous than it is, and that’s saying something.
Student politics.
Ignoring the headline, the main issue here is that when we were part of the EU, the Welsh Government created a body called the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO).
WEFO processed applications for funding from the EU Structural Funds and decided whether those projects aligned with Welsh Government goals for the funds. WEFO then paid the money to the successful projects on behalf of the EU. To make it clear, decisions on EU funding in Wales were devolved to the Welsh Government.
The UK Government under the Tories made a political decision to change that as part of the Brexit process. Instead of passing the replacement funds directly to the Welsh Government (which could have quite easily repurposed WEFO) for it to choose how the money was spent (as happened pre-Brexit), a new UK Government department was created to handle the process from start to finish and distribute the funds, in line with UK Government policy, not Welsh Government policy.
Unsurprisingly, the Welsh Government (and Welsh Labour) has always insisted that it should be responsible for this (as was the case pre-Brexit), not the UK Government. Following Welsh Labour’s desire to have the powers and money devolved again, Keir Starmer promised in 2023 that it would once again be devolved to Wales. Fast forward to the run up to last year’s election, Jo Stephens watered down that promise and said the UK Government would have control over it but “Welsh representatives” would be involved in the decision-making process. Fast forward to 2025 and we now know that those Welsh representatives aren’t from the Welsh Government, instead they’re UK Government ministers, removing any influence the Welsh Government might have had.
Of course, at the moment, the UK and Welsh governments are both controlled by Labour so you’d imagine they can come to informal agreements to include Welsh Labour priorities when making funding decisions. That might not always be the case and the Welsh Government would have absolutely no influence, informal or otherwise. Yet again, Labour promised one thing in opposition and changed their mind when they got the keys to Number 10.
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